Titanic anniversary commemorated with extravagant Balmoral cruise

They said she was unsinkable. But on April 14, 1912, the RMS Titanic hit an iceberg and sank into the Atlantic. Now almost one-hundred years later, the MS Balmoral is recreating the Titanic’s voyage — hopefully this time without the catastrophe.

Many of the 1,309 passengers aboard the Balmoral are descendants of the Titanic’s original passengers and crew.

“For me, it’s about being able to stand above the wreck exactly 100 years after my great grandfather died, and to be able to throw a flower down for him,” Sharon Willing of Arizona said on the official page for the memorial cruise. “This trip will bring closure to many people and it’s going to be very, very poignant.”

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But mourning comes at a high cost; tickets to travel aboard the luxury cruise cost between $5300 $9,500. No historical detail is overlooked: passengers eat dishes from the Titanic’s menu, and even listen to the same music, performed by a five-piece band.

The ship is following the same route that the Titanic took many years ago. It set sail from Southampton, U.K., on April 8, and docked in Cobh, Ireland on Monday. The Daily Mail reports that gales and waves delayed the ship’s docking in Cobh by two hours.

“There is a bad feeling on board that maybe the voyage is doomed by bad luck,” a passenger told the Mail.

Hopefully it will make it to Halifax, N.S., — and eventually New York City — on schedule. The real Titanic never made it to Halifax — it struck an iceberg off the coast of Newfoundland and sank within an hour. 1,514 people died, almost half of them crew.

The whole world mourned the tragedy, but perhaps the one place hit hardest was Southampton, U.K. More than three-quarters of the ocean liner’s crew were from the port city on the southern coast of England, which lost 549 residents in the wreckage.

Vanessa Beecham, from Southampton, was concerned that the extravagance of the Balmoral cruise takes away from the dignity of the deceased. Her great uncle Edward Biggs, was a fireman aboard the Titanic who died aged 21.

“It was a worry during the anniversary that the families would be forgotten in all the razzmatazz,” she said. “But this was lovely.”

A more solemn ceremony was held today at the Southampton dock where the ocean-liner set sail 100 years ago to the day. Beecham and around 650 other relatives of those who perished paid tribute at noon by observing a minute’s silence. The lonely call of the Titanic’s whistle was broadcast from a recording for all to hear.